2/05/2009 @ 6:00PM

Alfred Russel Wallace

My research seeks to recast the current culture war over so-called Darwinian science versus intelligent design by re-examining the historical roots of evolutionary theory itself.

The story has a surprising beginning. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin’s controversial magnum opus, was actually prompted by a letter to the English naturalist by Alfred Russel Wallace, who, in 1858, while suffering from malaria in the Malay Archipelago, sketched out (completely independently) the theory of natural selection.

Darwin had been working on a similar theory for years, but upon receipt of the so-called Ternate letter (Ternate was the location in Southeast Asia from which he sent the letter), he panicked at the prospect of being scooped and rushed his book to press the following year. (For more on Alfred Russel Wallace, see “The Man In Darwin’s Shadow.”)

Yet Darwin and Wallace had very different views of how their respective evolutionary mechanisms worked. In the end, those differences would lead to two inherently oppositional theories–Darwin’s driven by wholly random processes, and Wallace’s imbued with design and purpose. Wallace eventually broke with Darwin in 1869 over the ability of natural selection to explain the human intellect. For him, nature was infused with teleological meaning.

After Darwin’s death in 1882, Wallace continued to develop his ideas and eventually constructed what is best called intelligent evolution. This is not simply theistic evolution, a gratuitous, divine add-on to Darwin’s naturalistic processes, but an intelligently designed evolution that is limited by evolution’s principle of utility–namely, that no animal or structural part of an animal will develop unless an advantage is afforded to that species, nor will either advance beyond that which is necessary for survival.

Why, asked Wallace, if the principle of utility inherent in natural selection is absolute, did humans develop brains far beyond that necessary for mere survival? No biblical creationist, Wallace spent the remainder of his life answering that question and gave his fullest answer in the aptly titled World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose, published in 1910.

My book, Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolution, is really two volumes in one. First, an introduction places Darwin and Wallace in historical context. Second, an edited abridgment of The World of Life allows Wallace to speak for himself. While we hear much about “science” versus “creationism,” this book demonstrates that such popular caricatures are unhistorical and inaccurate.

For one thing, Darwin’s own theory could hardly be called objectively scientific. Early influences on Darwin’s youth established his predisposition to materialism and a dogmatic methodological naturalism long before his voyage on the Beagle. In short, Darwin’s metaphysic compelled his science. Wallace, on the other hand, was a tireless investigator who increasingly discerned design in nature. Unlike Darwin, Wallace’s science compelled his metaphysics.

In the end, this analysis reveals something about the real evolution debate–not about science but about two worldviews: materialism and randomness against teleology and purpose. The same issues that split Darwin and Wallace split us today, unresolved even after 150 years of debate between Darwinists and their dissenters.